Hungarian Politics

[Martinus]

The thing is, while the majority still prefers to have spouses and children, there is a significant minority in Western societies that makes more or less of a conscious choice not to - whether because they are rugged individualists like CdM, crazy like Raz or gay like me.

Except the gay aren't making a conscious choice, though you may have. 

Err, of course gays are making a conscious choice not to enter into heterosexual marriages and not to breed. 

[Martinus]

Also, Marty will love this: the rumours spreading around in the lowest lows of the rightish mob is that the IMF will grant the loan for "stopping the criminal investigation against Gyurcsany (former PM), and allowing gays to marry"

I thought you already allowed gays to marry. 

Edit: Or at least have civil partnerships. No?

[Tamas]

Also, Marty will love this: the rumours spreading around in the lowest lows of the rightish mob is that the IMF will grant the loan for "stopping the criminal investigation against Gyurcsany (former PM), and allowing gays to marry"

I thought you already allowed gays to marry. 

Edit: Or at least have civil partnerships. No?

yeah, IIRC.

[Martinus]

Also, Marty will love this: the rumours spreading around in the lowest lows of the rightish mob is that the IMF will grant the loan for "stopping the criminal investigation against Gyurcsany (former PM), and allowing gays to marry"

I thought you already allowed gays to marry. 

Edit: Or at least have civil partnerships. No?

yeah, IIRC.

So why would the IMF give you a loan for doing something you already do? 

[Tamas]

Also, Marty will love this: the rumours spreading around in the lowest lows of the rightish mob is that the IMF will grant the loan for "stopping the criminal investigation against Gyurcsany (former PM), and allowing gays to marry"

I thought you already allowed gays to marry. 

Edit: Or at least have civil partnerships. No?

yeah, IIRC.

So why would the IMF give you a loan for doing something you already do? 

you srsly looking for logic in right-wint frothing on gays?

[Tamas]

Also, Marty will love this: the rumours spreading around in the lowest lows of the rightish mob is that the IMF will grant the loan for "stopping the criminal investigation against Gyurcsany (former PM), and allowing gays to marry"

I thought you already allowed gays to marry. 

Edit: Or at least have civil partnerships. No?

yeah, IIRC.

So why would the IMF give you a loan for doing something you already do? 

I was wrong: this gay marriage rumour was not started by the mob itself: it was started by 'Magyar Nemzet' the de facto official FIDESZ newspaper.

[Sheilbh]

Well, it looks like it is not coming by an official FIDESZ march, but rather by a "civilian organization", called "Peace March for Hungary".

"The Hungarian people already witnessed the horrible consequences of the abroad's disdain, in front of the judges of Trianon. We don't want this to repeat"

On the theme of Hungarian emo self-harm, from the Economist:

Not just a rap on the knuckles

Jan 11th 2012, 19:23 by A.L.B. | BUDAPEST

THE pressure is piling up on the beleaguered Hungarian government. Today the European Commission threatened it with legal action over several new "cardinal" laws that would require a two-thirds majority in parliament to overturn.

The commission is still considering the laws, but today it highlighted concerns over three issues:

- The independence of the central bank. Late last year the Hungarian parliament passed a law which expands the monetary council and takes the power to nominate deputies away from the governor and hands it to the prime minister. A separate law opens the door to a merger between the bank and the financial regulator.

- The judiciary. More than 200 judges over the age of 62 have been forced into retirement and hundreds more face the sack. The new National Judicial Authority is headed by Tünde Handó, a friend of the family of Viktor Orbán, the prime minister.

- The independence of the national data authority.

That wasn't all the commission had to say today. Hungary also received a ticking-off from Olli Rehn (pictured), the economic-affairs commissioner, for not doing enough to tackle its budget deficit. It may now lose access to EU funds.

Slammed in Brussels, the Hungarian government is also under pressure at home. Earlier this week Gordon Bajnai, who served as Socialist prime minister from 2009-10, fired off a broadside that sent shockwaves through the political and media establishments.

After a year and a half of government by the right-wing Fidesz party, wrote Mr Bajnai in a lengthy article on the website of the Patriotism and Progress Public Policy Foundation, democracy has been destroyed in Hungary. The country, he warned, is scarred by division and is drifting towards bankruptcy and away from Europe.

Mr Bajnai called for a radical change of government and a complete political re-orientation. "A new government must have a programme readily at hand that can be applied without delay: a programme that promotes the republic, reconciliation, and recovery."

Fidesz is rattled by Mr Bajnai, who since leaving office has been teaching at Columbia University in New York. Understandably so. He headed a technocratic administration which stabilised the economy. Unlike his Socialist predecessor, Ferenc Gyurcsány, he was neither part of the old Communist elite nor connected to it by marriage, and so cannot be smeared as a "Komcsi". He is modern in outlook and well regarded internationally.

Moreover, say those how know him, Mr Bajnai has little patience for the narcissistic exceptionalism that shapes Fidesz's worldview. Exhibit A: the plaintive cry of János Martonyi, the foreign minister, who lamented recently: "The world will never understand our pains and spiritual wounds." Such self-pity is unlikely to endear the Hungarian government to Brussels or Washington DC (to where it has sent an envoy this week to negotiate with the IMF).

Fidesz won a two-thirds majority in 2010. But its support is evaporating, and analysts say there is a gap in the political market for a centrist pro-business party committed to democratic norms. Mr Bajnai, who has not ruled out a return to politics, would be an obvious candidate to lead it.

Meanwhile, as Hungarians watch the value of their assets vaporise, in large part thanks to the government's increasingly erratic policies, Mr Orbán smirks his way through press conferences. Here he is dodging questions from a reporter from HVG, an economics weekly, about his responsibility for the crisis and trying to shift the blame to his old enemy András Simor, president of the central bank. The interview ran as follows:

hvg.hu: Do you feel responsible for the falling/weakening forint?

Mr Orbán: You mean the president of the central bank? He did not comment on it.

hvg.hu: No, you, Mr prime minister!

Mr Orbán: The personal responsibility of the president of the central bank was not discussed over the meeting.

hvg.hu: You, your personal...!

Mr Orbán: That neither.

Surrounded by yes-men and grinning flunkies, Mr Orbán seems increasingly out of touch. His future will likely be decided not in the gilded corridors of the Hungarian parliament, but in Brussels and Washington DC.

What happens next? If his hand is forced Mr Orbán can probably endure policy reversals on the independence of the central bank and the data ombudsman. Sorry, he would say to his loyal followers: national crisis, what can you do.

The dismantling of the judiciary would be another matter. If outsiders keep up the pressure and the judicial changes are judged to be in breach of the EU treaty, Mr Orbán would be in a tricky spot. It's hard to see how he could declare the 200-plus judges his government has forced into retirement ready for office after all, and still sit in his own.

I love this line: 'the world will never understand our pains and spiritual wounds.'

[Neil]

The 'magyar way of living'?  While Europe has cracked down on banditry, I'm pretty sure that nobody is going to keep the Hungarians from whining about their betters and being indistinguishable from gypsies.

[Tamas]

I love this line: 'the world will never understand our pains and spiritual wounds.'

That's just a capsule of feeling all warm and Magyar inside.

[Tamas]

Bajnai: he is on the list to be discredited by corruption trials, it is just delaying as most of these cases, since they can't really come up with evidence (the Hungarian elite was smart enough to make their stealings legal so it would be kinda' hard to make it appear illegal), so maybe that is one of the reasons he is coming back to politics - seeking shelter in publicity.


Otherwise, his name regularly comes up, as it was during his short reign that we climbed back from the edge of bankrupcy.

In my personal opinion, while he must be a talented businessman, and we would need an unpolitical technocrat like him to take the political suicide pill and reform the country, his nation-leading genius is overplayed: he received a list of demands from the IMF, and he kept to it. He did nothing more, nothing less.

[Martinus]

In my personal opinion, while he must be a talented businessman, and we would need an unpolitical technocrat like him to take the political suicide pill and reform the country, his nation-leading genius is overplayed: he received a list of demands from the IMF, and he kept to it. He did nothing more, nothing less.

Errr, if you are part of a nation of untermensch, the smartest thing you can do is to do what others tell you. 

[Richard Hakluyt]

I love this line: 'the world will never understand our pains and spiritual wounds.'

That's just a capsule of feeling all warm and Magyar inside.

I guess everyone in Hungary wears black and lots of eyeshadow all the time 

[Neil]

In my personal opinion, while he must be a talented businessman, and we would need an unpolitical technocrat like him to take the political suicide pill and reform the country, his nation-leading genius is overplayed: he received a list of demands from the IMF, and he kept to it. He did nothing more, nothing less.

Errr, if you are part of a nation of untermensch, the smartest thing you can do is to do what others tell you. 

You guys are even worse, you filthy Russian.

[Barrister]

In my personal opinion, while he must be a talented businessman, and we would need an unpolitical technocrat like him to take the political suicide pill and reform the country, his nation-leading genius is overplayed: he received a list of demands from the IMF, and he kept to it. He did nothing more, nothing less.

But the ting is - the secrets to good government aren't exactly all that mysterious or difficult.  Keep your books balanced, moderate regulation, make sure your taxes aren't punitive.  It's just that so many governments can't resist trying to do more than that and wind up in trouble.

[PDH]

But the ting is - the secrets to good government aren't exactly all that mysterious or difficult.  Keep your books balanced, moderate regulation, make sure your taxes aren't punitive.  It's just that so many governments can't resist trying to do more than that and wind up in trouble.

  Whatever, Edmund.